At ISNS, our Early Years Creative Arts classes focus on nurturing a deep appreciation for the arts, igniting a passion for creativity, and providing a secure environment where children can explore and experiment with visual arts. Our emphasis lies in imparting techniques and skills that boost children's confidence in their artistic abilities. 

This week, we interviewed our Creative Arts Teacher Mr. Marc Sommerville to unfold how we integrate the subject into IB Units of Inquiries learning.

In early years creative arts, we draw on all the different arts that kids learn about. We tell stories through drama, so we play with puppets; and we tell stories with role plays and the kids get to take on different characters, show different feelings and express themselves in creative ways. 

We also tell stories through visual arts where children get to draw. They get to cut and glue everything from collage to oil paints to watercolors. And they get to express themselves and use their imagination. 

At the higher grades they get to extend their imagination by using characters settings, different plots. In the early years, we focus more on techniques and skills to help building their confidence in creating art. 

Finally, we also tell stories using music and the students develop skills in percussion, matching pitch, singing and moving to different music styles and genres. 

At the beginning of each unit, we meet with the various grade level teams and we discuss where are some opportunities for us to support the students in their language development, their vocabulary. But most importantly, deepening their understanding of the big ideas, the big concepts that they're learning in their units of inquiry. 

Additionally, we also use student voice, choice and themes that may fall outside of the units of inquiry. For example, if there are holidays or special celebrations we will use those as a springboard to explore in ways that speak to the students' lived experience.  

We integrate all the arts and also integrate with some of the units of inquiry in the homerooms. So we collaborate with each of the homeroom teams to make sure that we are supporting students as they learn different concepts, different vocabulary and then we get to reinforce those up in the creative arts classroom. 

We also engage in exploration and play. As you may know, the early years is focused a lot on play-based learning. 

We don't have specific stand-alone early years creative arts units. However, we integrate with the various homeroom units. 

For example with K5, they had a recent unit on imagination and that opened the door to a lot of exploration and creative arts classes: telling stories, singing songs, creating works of art and reflecting on those techniques and skills, and how these things made them feel to inspire their imagination. 

A big part of what we do in early years creative arts is building the foundation of a love for the arts, a love for creativity and giving kids a safe space to take risks and try new things with visual arts. 

For example, we focus a lot on Teaching Artistic Behaviors (TAB). So we are teaching our students how to choose different materials for different expressive activities and they're learning to be responsible for their choices to choose the right materials and a variety of materials. Then they are principled enough to be able to put them back when they're finished. 

Those foundational skills will set them up for success as they move up in the grade. 

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